He ‘caught the love bug’ for making a famous style pizza. Now it’s sold throughout CT.

Heath Andranovich has a style of pizza in his DNA.

So it’s no shocker that, after moving the family from West Haven to Durham in 1999 he opened Carmine’s Pizza and Italian Takeout.

He comes from a famous West Haven pizza family and grew up “eating the best pizza in the world,” or New Haven-style, Sally’s, Pepe’s, and Mike’s.

But what surprised even him was that, on a “whim”, Andranovich opened a spinoff business that’s hugely successful: selling acclaimed fresh, frozen, uncooked pizza in grocery stores, now in 140 stores.

Heath Andranovich, owner of Carmine’s Pizza, in front and Frank Morale make frozen cheese pizzas in Durham on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)

That segment is growing exponentially.

Thousands of Carmine’s frozen pizzas are sold each week in Stop & Shop, Adams, Big Y, Stew Leonard’s and smaller markets as well. They are sold throughout Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and soon, New York. Andranovich said they do their own distribution for quality control.

Most recently they also are offering a gluten-free cauliflower made by Sapori Di OGGI out of Canada.

Connecticut style of pizza gets a catchy song of its own. Hear it here, tap along and hope for a pie

A department manager at Connecticut Fresh Fruit and Produce Market in Wallingford said he grew up on Wooster Street in New Haven, believed by many to carry the nation’s best pizza and Andranovich, “makes one hell of a pizza.”

The Carmine’s frozen case empties fast and people appreciate when Andranovich gives samples.

“They sell themselves,” Carmen Bottone said of the Carmine’s frozen pizza. “It’s a no brainer for us.”

The pizzas sell for about $8. Andranovich, a friendly and humble man, grew up in West Haven, considered an extension of that pizza mecca on Wooster Street, and is a cousin of the owner of the famed Mike’s Apizza.

Andranovich worked there as a young man and while he was never an official pizza maker, he learned to make the pizza there for family get togethers and other occasions.

“I caught the love bug for making pizza,” Andranovich said. “My uncle gave me the footprint, taught me how to do things.”

Andranovich bought the pizza restaurant in Durham when it became available about 22 years ago and named it after their son.

It was located next to a tanning salon owned by the Andranovichs, as Heath Andranovich was trying to find a career that clicked.

“That was it. For some reason it felt really good to me,” Andranovich said of opening the pizza restaurant. “There wasn’t great pizza here. We’d go to West Haven or New Haven.”

With help of his cousin and uncle in West Haven, he created recipes offering the New Haven style pizza he was raised on as well as other Italian dishes for mostly takeout.

The business was an instant hit in Durham.

“To be here in this town and start from scratch there’s no better feeling in the world,” he said. “It’s not about the money, it’s about the friends I’ve made in this town. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The seedling idea for frozen pizza began when he would freeze a some to bring on family beach vacations to Rhode Island.

“People would say, ‘You should sell this,” he said.

Andranovich was busy at the time and and didn’t revisit the commercial idea until several years later.

He tried it out by making a few of the fresh frozen pizzas and stocked them in the restaurant.

They flew out the door and he made a lucky connection when a customer who worked for Stop & Shop had the idea to test them out in a store.

There were some USDA requirements to expand, so he built a production facility was built in back of the restaurant.

They use fresh garlic, basil, finest tomatoes, crust made by a master doughmaker and various toppings.

“Every single one of my pizzas are fresh and they’re the same,” so the customer knows what to expect.

Connecticut/New Haven-style pizza guru and New Haven Pizza School owner, Frank Zabski , said Carmine’s Pizza is excellent and it’s one of the few frozen pizzas not par-cooked so customers can make them as light or dark as they want.

“He got a lot of excellent experience making pizza,” Zabski said, noting his frozen pizza is as good as that sold by Zuppardis of West Haven fame.

Customer Jordan Roy, who grew up in Durham eating Carmine’s pizza, now has a family of his own who consider it their favorite.

“We’re a big pizza family,” Roy said. “It’s New Haven-style pizza and it’s phenomenal.”

Roy said his wife likes the Carmine’s frozen pizza even better than in the restaurant.

“It’s just so fresh,” he said. “They turn out phenomenal. The crust is so crispy. It’s like you made it yourself.”

Roy said one of his young children blurted in a restaurant in South Carolina, “This isn’t as good as Carmines.”

Andranovich said he’s grateful to his family for helping it all to happen through the years

“I get a little choked up when I talk about it,” he said. “It’s a family thing and that’s important.”